Terror suspect who tried to blow up Bronx synagogues fired at teens: feds (USA)

They weren't always bungling terror thugs: One of the men on trial for trying to blow up Bronx synagogues  previously shot two Jewish teenagers with a pellet gun.
Federal prosecutors sought Wednesday to include Laguerre Payen's 2002 guilty plea in Rockland County as evidence of a longstanding hatred of Jews.

"Similar to this case, Payen drove out of his way to a predominantly Jewish neighborhood ... which strongly suggests that Payen's prior crime of assault had a racist or anti-Semitic motive," prosecutors said in court papers.

Both victims survived the shooting, though one still has part of a BB pellet in his eye, prosecutors said.

They argued yesterday that they should be allowed to reveal the earlier episode to jurors in Manhattan Federal Court to counter claims that Payen was entrapped, and too incompetent and timid to commit terrorism.

"Although different crimes, they are in many respects 'morally indistinguishable,'" prosecutors wrote. "Payen's prior conduct provides more insight into his violent character than the current offense."

Payen's lawyer asked District Judge Colleen McMahon to bar jurors from hearing evidence from the earlier case.

She gave him until Tuesday to file an objection.

Payen and his bumbling co-conspirators were busted in 2009 for a wildly incompetent alleged plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down military jets upstate.

Their trial has already featured numerous anti-Semitic screeds, mostly coming from the mouth of gang's leader, James Cromitie.

"These f---ing Jews get me sick," Cromitie said in a video played for jurors on Wednesday.

NY Daily News

Former Terry Jones church in Germany denounces Koran-burning plan

Pastor Terry Jones, whose call to "burn the Koran" has led to fears of global repercussions,  worked as missionary for decades in Germany. Here, too, he was known for his extreme convictions.

A German church founded and formerly led by Terry Jones, the American pastor who international attracted attention with controversial plans to stage a Koran-burning ceremony, expressly denounced those plans on Wednesday.
Stephan Baar, deputy chairman of the Christliche Gemeinde Koeln (CGD), the Christian Community of Cologne, told Deutsche Welle that Jones preached a strict, even fundamental understanding of the Bible, but that no direct comparisons could be drawn between his sermons there and the radical views he is currently espousing at his new church.

"We want to make it clear that our church is opposed to what Terry Jones is advocating at the moment and that the CGD, even though he is the founder, has no more contact with him," Baar said.

The community asked him to leave in 2008. Baar insisted that there were no controversies surrounding his departure.

"He just left; we did not witness any of the deeply disturbing things we are seeing now. Pastor Terry Jones was placing too much emphasis on himself and distracting our members from their Christian faiths. He and our church simply went their separate ways."

'Gate to Hell'
Brigitte Baetz, a Cologne journalist who is a regular contributor on German public radio, said Jones espoused radical Christian views while at the helm of the CGD.
Baetz told Deutsche Welle that Jones commonly referred to the city of Cologne as a "Gate to Hell" and emphasized that Christians were "persecuted" there and took on the role of "innocent victims who would be rewarded for their suffering."

"In his sermons Terry Jones often convinced the members that they were made to suffer hardships because they were part of the CGD. He said again and again that the members were the victims of persecution and that it led to them losing their jobs and social status, for instance."

Baetz said that Jones' sermons bordered on fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible. She singled out his vehement opposition to Cologne plans to construct a mosque in the city as an example of his extremist views.

"Terry Jones saw religion as wrong and right. He told his followers here in Germany that Christians, and especially members of his CGD, were the only ones who were right. This is the basis, I believe, for what he is doing right now with his new church in Florida," Baetz said.

US unable to prevent controversial burning
Leading figures around the globe have expressed fears that Jones' planned "International Burn a Koran Day" could seriously strain relations between Muslims and the West.

David Petraeus, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, warned that "burning the holy book of Islam provides propaganda for insurgents and could endanger the [Alliance's] overall effort." Petraeus' comments were echoed later by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In response to Petraeus' words of caution, meanwhile, Jones said on Tuesday: "Why don't we send a warning to them? Why don't we send a warning to radical Islam and say, 'don't do it?' If you attack us, if you attack us, we will attack you."

The United States government appears unable to prevent Jones' September 11 commemoration plans on Saturday. Although Florida fire authorities have turned down Jones' application to stage the open-air burning ceremony, police will not be allowed to intervene until the Korans have actually been lit.

DW-World

Fidel Castro accuses Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of antisemitism

Fidel Castro has accused Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, of antisemitism, in a passionate defence  of Israel's right to exist. Cuba's retired president, a longtime critic of Israeli government policy, said Jews had been slandered and slaughtered for centuries whereas Muslims were not blamed for anything.

The 83-year-old comandante criticised Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and urged Tehran to acknowledge the "unique" history of antisemitism and understand why Israelis feared for their existence.

The comments will sting Iran's president and could prove awkward for Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, two presidents who revere Castro and have forged close ties with Ahmadinejad.

Castro made his comments to Jeffrey Goldberg, a journalist with The Atlantic, whom he summoned to Havana after reading one of his articles about the Middle East.

Goldberg brought Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the two talked with Castro over three days last month. The journalist's blog on the encounters, posted today, revealed the first details of the encounter.

In recent months Castro has repeatedly warned that the US and Israel were edging the world towards a nuclear catastrophe in their confrontation with Iran. But he surprised his visitors by dwelling on the historic injustices suffered by Jews. Iran, he said, should understand the Jews were expelled from their land and mistreated all over the world as the ones who killed God. "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust."

Castro continued: "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." Asked what he would tell Ahmadinejad face to face, Castro replied: "I am saying this so you can communicate it."He reminisced about being a young boy and overhearing classmates saying Jews killed Jesus Christ. "I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds. This is how ignorant the entire population was."

The Cuban said nuclear powers, including Israel, should disarm and that he understood Iranian fears of Israeli-American aggression. "Iranians are not going to back down in the face of threats. That's my opinion."

Goldberg said Castro's body was frail but his mind was acute and energy levels high. "And not only that: the late-stage Fidel Castro turns out to possess something of a self-deprecating sense of humour. When I asked him, over lunch, to answer what I've come to think of as the Christopher Hitchens question – has your illness caused you to change your mind about the existence of God? – he answered, 'Sorry, I'm still a dialectical materialist.'"

Goldberg also asked Castro what he now thought about his recommendation to the Soviet Union to bomb the US during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. "After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it all."

The Guardian

Protestors arrested at Swedish far-right meeting

Three people were arrested on Wednesday during a skirmish between supporters of the far-right Sweden Democrats party and demonstrators trying to disrupt a party rally, police said.

The Sweden Democrats had just started their meet in the central town of Joenkoeping when opponents showed up in the town square with whistles and horns.

"We had to arrest three people. Two of them were temporarily taken into custody because they disturbed (the rally) with whistles and horns," Niels Eriksson of the Joenkoeping police told AFP.

The third person was arrested for throwing an object at one of the speakers, he said. According to local media, the object was a paper cup filled with water.

Polls have showed the staunchly anti-immigration Sweden Democrats could for the first time obtain more than the 4.0 percent of votes required to enter parliament after the September 19 general elections in Sweden.

Police were present at the rally.

"It's unfortunate, but needed. We would be attacked by leftwing and immigrant groups if they weren't here," Kent Ekeroth, the party's international secretary, told local news website jnytt.se.

"People don't seem to have respect for freedom of speech," he said.

Swedish Wire

‘Neo-Nazi’ Campaign Against President Obama

Is there a connection between the neo-Nazi movement and the more mainstream American right? Incredulous, the press secretary of CIA-toppled Chilean President Salvador Allende complains that the only people that seem concerned about this are in … the CIA. One might also note that Chile was one of the destinations of choice for Nazis that survived World War II.

For Spain’s El Mercurio, former Allende press secretary Frida Modak writes in part:

The campaign in the United States unleashed against President Barack Obama is far from being just part of an electoral contest. It reflects the advance of the neo-Nazi movement, which has always been latent in the country to the North and has acquired new vigor since 2000 – coincidentally the year of George W. Bush’s arrival at the White House.
Racism in the United States surfaced with the colonization of its territory. Its victims were not only Native Americans, but Blacks who were purchased or kidnapped in Africa and taken to the American continent as slaves. The U.S. group most equivalent to what now amounts to Neo-Nazism is the Ku-Klux-Klan.
Bringing this precursor up to the current era, we find a President Barack Obama besieged by an opposition with all the characteristics of neo-Nazis. With Bush they felt represented, battling Muslims who had been declared the new enemies – added, of course, to the old ones: Blacks, Latinos, Jews, socialists and homosexuals.

There are other business-related groups that contribute to these demonstrations and the creation of entities opposed to policies put forward by Obama. They have succeeded in convincing 25 percent of U.S. people that their president is a Muslim and hence, not a Christian. The White House has had to deny the rumors.

But the campaign continues. The goal is for the U.S. right and ultra-right to win the upcoming legislative elections and reach a majority in the House of Representatives to prevent the passage of laws that affect the interests of large corporations. At the same time, all of this continues to generate movements and state laws that target minorities and migrants.

The Moderate Voice

Cracks appear at the heart of the EDL (UK)

A new wave of infighting and backbiting is engulfing the leadership of the English Defence League. At the centre of the growing discontent is the claim that EDL founder Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Paul Harris, is lining his own pocket through the sale of merchandise.


We have reported on these rumours for quite some time but now they have exploded publicly. A recent EDL meeting in West Yorkshire, shortly after their failed protest in Bradford, descended into recriminations and frustration at the Luton-based leadership.

Tommy Robinson hit back furiously. “Who do people think they are when they slate others who have done nothing but put their hearts, their souls, their time and relentless effort into the defence of our country, much to the annoyance of their families, their partners and even themselves?

“And what do they get other than a constant barrage of unwarranted abuse, hostility and fabrications propagated to inflame those hostilities?”

He went on: “So I’ve made millions from merchandise have i? Iv skimmed monies from the EDL movement and basically shit on our grass roots members making a living off it? Im supposedly parasiting off EDL success to line my own pockets am i?

“How fucking sad are these people?”

And he concludes: “Seriously these so called and self styled “EDL Members” need to take a good long look at themselves and see the harm they are causing, to divide is to conquer but i know that sometimes something has to be broken so it can be fixed. People who need to break away because of rumour, hearsay, and lies are welcome to leave, i only want real people with the best intentions for this movement involved. I have no time for political platitudes, for massaging egos, for babysitting or wet nursing so called “members” who have hissy fit tantrums, members who are the cause of the majority of strife within the movement.”

The organiser of the West Yorkshire meeting was John ‘Snowy’ Shaw, one of the two EDL members who staged the Dudley rooftop protest. Stung by Tommy Robinson’s attack, he meekly rolled over like a sad puppy.

“I said two things on Saturday that were passed onto me that I now know 100% are totally untrue, firstly that Tommy had made thousands of pounds out of EDL and secondly that Kevin didn't use his real daughter in the documentary. I would like to offer my most sincere apology to both these men for bringing their good names into disrupt, by repeating these lies that were brought to my attention instead of what I should of done and spoke to them personally. That was a grave error on my part and believe me or not I never went to that meeting with any intention of saying those two things and regretted them when I did, we are all human and we make mistakes I should know I have made plenty. I feel that some people have used my passion and commitment to the cause to manipulate me for their own agenda, maybe the fact that I am fanatical about EDL was my down fall.”

He concluded: “I don't now or have never wanted to cause a division within EDL, I only want what's best for the cause.”

The problem for Snowy is that he has caused a division and despite the public apology Tommy Robinson is not in the mood to forgive.

Hope not Hate

Police admit ‘kettling’ on protest day (Wales, UK)

Police have admitted using a controversial containment tactic known as “kettling” during a demonstration by anti-fascist protesters against the English Defence League.

The disclosure by South Wales Police was made to Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood after she complained that the force publicly denied detaining Unite Against Fascism supporters in Cardiff city centre.

Following an internal investigation, the force has acknowledged keeping protesters in an area that Ms Wood said was ringed by a steel barrier at one end with police officers at the other.

“Kettling” is the name given to the police tactic of containing crowds in a limited area, notoriously used by the Metropolitan Police to contain demonstrators for a long period without access to food, water or toilet facilities during the G20 protests in London last year.

South Wales Police said it wrongly denied using the tactic following Ms Wood’s criticism of their handling of the opposing June 5 demonstrations near City Hall because the police commander had not been informed that a supervising officer at the scene detained protesters for operational reasons.

In a letter confirming Ms Wood’s complaint was upheld, Detective Chief Inspector Gary Osborne, of the professional standards department, said the event commander had not received a message due to “fast moving events that were ongoing”.

Ms Wood, AM for South Wales Central, who was part of the Unite Against Fascism protest, said: “While I accept their reasons for issuing a denial to the media, I find it surprising that a decision to contain a large number of people for more than an hour was not conveyed to the senior officer in charge of policing operations on the day.”

She claimed the containment of those opposing “the divisive and hate-filled politics of the English Defence League” was unnecessary.

“I intend to write again to the social justice minister, Carl Sargeant, to ask his views on the matter in light of this new information,” she added.

Assistant Chief Constable Nick Croft said officers had faced a “challenging” situation.

“I agree with Leanne Wood that lessons should, and will, be learned. We have already amended our strategies and tactics to reflect the lessons learned in this case,” he said.

“However, we must not forget that a public order ground commander appears to have made a decision in good faith that was intended to protect protesters and our communities.

“Ms Wood makes reference to protesters being contained for an hour, which is incorrect. The time period was far shorter and the decision was taken in response to officers’ assessment of the threat level at the time. Officers also facilitated the exit of some of the demonstrators.

“Overall the event passed off very peacefully, which cannot be said for other similar demonstrations elsewhere in the UK.”

Assistant Chief Constable Croft added: “The matter reported by Ms Wood is still being investigated thoroughly and that investigation is not complete. However, Ms Wood was recently provided with an update which, disappointingly, has led to this premature press release. I have offered to meet with Ms Wood.”

Wales Online

New Westminster to apologize to Chinese Canadians for historic racism (Canada)

New Westminster will be the first municipal government in Canada to offer a formal apology to Chinese Canadians for historic racism and discrimination.

The apology, which will be offered in English and Chinese on September 20, is part of an continuing reconciliation initiative undertaken by the city of New Westminster.

"Discrimination has been endemic in this province," said Bill Chu, Chair of the Canadians for Reconciliation Society.

"New West was not, by any means, the only city that had a policy that was discriminatory to the Chinese," said Chu, who calls this apology "historic and courageous."

Acknowledging the difficult history is part of developing a healthy relationship based on historical truth and a sense of justice, said Chu.

Mayor Wayne Wright said the city assigned senior staff to do historical research on Chinese history in the region.

"Historical facts came out," said Wright. "The Chinese community helped build our region, and we found out some of the things that went on that weren't so pleasant."

Wright said making a formal apology will be just one more step in the process of reconciliation and moving forward.

Chu cites the BC 150 celebrations in 2008 as a galvanizing moment for many in the Chinese community in B.C.

"We could not find anything that defines us in that celebration," said Chu.

So Chu, along with the CFRS, and aided by academics and aboriginal leaders, undertook a research project on the true history of the Chinese community in B.C.

The group discovered over a thousand sites of historical significance, only two of which are officially recognized by the province.

"It was very eye-opening," said Chu. "The Chinese did the railroad, yes. They were also mining for gold, farming, creating irrigation, restaurants."

In 1881, census data show that 20 per cent of the non-aboriginal residents in the province were Chinese. Nonetheless, there was widespread legal and institutionalized discrimination against the Chinese, including restrictions on voting, employment and wage-earnings.

Chu said Chinese Canadians must have a historical frame of reference within Canada in order to foster a sense of allegiance and national pride.

The CFRS hopes to see an accurate Chinese Canadian history included in the B.C. school curriculum.

"The big question now is whether B.C. as a province will take on the important task of acknowledging its own history."

The public is invited to attend the apology at 6:15 p.m., September 20 at the council chamber in New Westminster City Hall.

Vancover Sun